I confirm with thanks the receipt of your highly in-
teresting letter. Will study the matter. Sincerely,
.He read Wenner-Gren’s proposals closely and did not relish
them at all.
Göring reluctantly began forward planning. On June , he
inquired of General Udet, “Can the Volkswagen plant turn out
warplane engines if hostilities eventuate?” Two days later, chair-
ing the second session of the Reich Defense Council, he directed
the attention of this “key Reich body” to the current bottlenecks
of coal output, transportation, and manpower. “The German
transport system,” he warned them, “is not ready for war. You
cannot regard our three operations during and as real
mobilizations.” He instructed them to improve the transport
system now, in case of “an unexpected call, at short notice,” for a
military confrontation.
Battling to restore his own esteem in Hitler’s eyes, he con-
ferred on June with Udet about plans for a spectacular dis-
play of top-secret Luftwaffe equipment at Rechlin research sta-
tion. “Show everything achieved up to now,” he jotted down in
his diary after the conference with Udet: “Charts displaying in-
dustry’s expansion, , fighters, , bombers.”
The glittering display of ultramodern Luftwaffe weaponry
was staged on July . It was to prove the origin of many wrong
conclusions drawn by Hitler about his air force’s lead in both
quantity and quality. The aircraft and guns he was shown were
the most advanced in the world, but still a long way from mass
production. Göring showed Hitler the rocket-propelled Heinkel
fighter, an experimental plane with an astonishing rate of
climb, first test-flown at Peenemünde only a few days earlier.
Ernst Heinkel had also brought along his He , the world’s